Death at the Bar (9 page)

An hour passed. It is significant that when he finally left the Yard and walked rapidly down the Embankment, his lips were pursed in a soundless whistle.

i

Superintendent Nicholas Harper to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn
—

Part of a letter from Colonel the Honourable Maxwell Brammington, Chief Constable of South Devon, to the Superintendent of the Central Branch of New Scotland Yard
—

“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” said the Superintendent of C.I., staring at the horsehoe and crossed swords that garnished the walls of his room, “you seem to be popular in South Devon.”

“It must be a case, sir,” said Alleyn, “of sticking to the ills they know.”

“Think so? Well, I’ll have a word with the A.C. You’d better pack your bag and tell your wife.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“You knew Watchman, didn’t you?”

“Slightly, sir. I’ve had all the fun of being turned inside out by him in the witness-box.”

“In the Davidson case?”

“And several others.”

“I seem to remember you were equal to him. But didn’t you know him personally?”

“Slightly.”

“He was a brilliant counsel.”

“He was, indeed.”

“Well, watch your step and do us proud.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Taking Fox?”

“If I may.”

“That’s all right. We’ll hear from you.”

Alleyn returned to his room, collected his emergency suitcase and kit, and sent for Fox.

“Br’er Fox,” he said, “this is a wish-fulfillment. Get your fancy pyjamas and your tooth-brush. We catch the midday train for South Devon.”

ii

The branch-line from Exeter to Illington meanders amiably towards the coast. From the train windows, Alleyn and Fox looked down on sunken lanes, on thatched roofs, and on glossy hedgerows that presented millions of tiny mirrors to the afternoon sun. Alleyn let down the window, and the scent of hot grass and leaves drifted into the stuffy carriage.

“Nearly there, Br’er Fox. That’s Illington church-spire over the hill, and there’s the glint of sea beyond.”

“Very pleasant,” said Fox, dabbing at his enormous face with his handkerchief. “Warm, though.”

“High summer, out there.”

“You never seem to show the heat, Mr. Alleyn. Now I’m a warm man. I perspire very freely. Always have. It’s not an agreeable habit, though they tell me it’s healthy.”

“Yes, Fox.”

“I’ll get the things down, sir.”

The train changed its pace from slow to extremely slow. Beyond the window, a main road turned into a short-lived main street, with a brief network of surrounding shops. The word “Illington” appeared in white stones on a grassy bank, and they drew into the station.

“There’s the Super,” said Fox. “Very civil.”

Superintendent Harper shook hands at some length. Alleyn, once as touchy as a cat, had long ago accustomed himself to official hand-clasps. And he liked Harper who was bald, scarlet-faced, blue-eyed, and sardonic.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Alleyn,” said Harper. “Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. I’ve got a car outside.”

He drove them in a police Ford down the main street. They passed a Woolworth store, a departmental store, a large hotel, and a row of small shops amongst which Alleyn noticed one labelled “Bernard Noggins, Chemist.”

“Is that where Parish bought the cyanide?”

“You haven’t lost any time, Mr. Alleyn,” said Harper, who seemed to hover on the edge of Alleyn’s Christian name and to funk it at the last second. “Yes, that’s it. He’s a very stupid sort of man, is Bernie Noggins. There’s the station. The colonel will be along presently. He’s in a shocking mood over this affair, but you may be able to cope with him. I thought that before we moved on to Ottercombe, you might like to see the files and have a tell,” said Harper, whose speech still held a tang of West Country.

“Splendid. Where are we to stay?”

“That’s as you like, of course, Mr. Alleyn, but I’ve told that old blatherskite Pomeroy to hold himself in readiness. I thought you might prefer to be on the spot. I’ve warned him to say nothing about it and I think he’ll have the sense to hold his tongue. No need to put anybody on the alert, is there? This car’s at your service.”

“Yes, but look here—”

“It’s quite all right, Mr. Alleyn. I’ve a small two-seater we can use here.”

“That sounds perfectly splendid,” said Alleyn, and followed Harper into the police station.

They sat down in Harper’s office, while he got out his files. Alleyn looked at the photographs of past Superintendents, at the worn linoleum and varnished woodwork, and he wondered how many times he had sat in country police stations waiting for the opening gambit of a case that, for one reason or another, had been a little too much for the local staff. Alleyn was the youngest chief-inspector at the Central Branch of New Scotland Yard, but he was forty-three. “I’m getting on,” he thought without regret. “Old Fox must be fifty, he’s getting quite grey. We’ve done all this so many times together.” And he heard his own voice as if it was the voice of another man, uttering the familiar phrases.

“I hope we won’t be a nuisance to you, Nick. A case of this sort’s always a bit tiresome, isn’t it? Local feeling and so on.”

Harper clapped a file down on his desk, threw his head back and looked at Alleyn from under his spectacles.

“Local feeling?” he said. “Local stupidity! I don’t care. They work it out for themselves and get a new version every day. Old Pomeroy’s not the worst, not by a long chalk. The man’s got something to complain about, or thinks he has. It’s these other experts, George Nark & Co., that make all the trouble. Nark’s written three letters to the
Illington Courier
. The first was about fingerprinting. He called it ‘the Bertillion system,’ of course, ignorant old ass, and wanted to know if we’d printed everyone who was there, when Watchman died. So I got him round here and printed him. So he wrote another letter to the paper about the liberty of the subject and said the South Devon Constabulary were a lot of Hitlers. Then Oates, the Coombe P.C., found him crawling about outside Pomeroy’s garage with a magnifying glass, and kicked him out. So he wrote another letter, saying the police were corrupt. Then the editor, who ought to know better, wrote a damn-fool leader and then three more letters about me appeared. They were signed ‘Vigilant,’ ‘Drowsy,’ and ‘Moribund.’ Then all the pressmen who’d gone away, came back again. I don’t care. What of it? But the C.C. began ringing me up three times a day and I got fed up and suggested he ask you, and he jumped at it. There’s the file.”

Alleyn and Fox hastened to make sympathetic noises.

“Before we see the file” Alleyn said, “we’d very much like to hear your own views. We’ve looked up the report on the inquest so we’ve got the main outline or ought to have it.”

“My views?” repeated Mr. Harper moodily. “I haven’t got any. I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Don’t you, now?”

“I don’t see how it could have been. I suppose old Pomeroy bleated about his injuries when he went screeching up to the Yard. I think he’s right. ’Far as I can see, the old man did take reasonable precautions. Well, perhaps not that, the stuff ought never to have been left on the premises. But I don’t see how, twenty-four hours after he’d stowed the bottle away in the cupboard, he could have infected that dart accidentally. We’ve printed the cupboard. It’s got his prints on it and nobody’s else’s.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn, “then it isn’t a case of somebody else having tampered with the bottle and been too scared to own up.”

“No.”

“How many sets of Pomeroy’s prints are on the cupboard door?”

“Several. Four good ones on the knob. And he turned the key in the top cupboard when he put the cyanide away. His print’s on the key all right and you can’t do the pencil trick, for I’ve tried. It’s a fair teaser.”

“Any prints on the bottle?”

“None. But he explained he wore gloves and wiped the bottle.”

“The cupboard door’s interesting.”

“Is it? Well, when he opened the parcel of darts he broke the seals. I got hold of the wrapping and string. The string had only been tied once and the seals have got the shop’s mark on them.”

“Damn good, Nick,” said Alleyn. Mr. Harper looked a little less jaundiced.

“Well, it goes to show,” he admitted, “the dart was O.K. when old Pomeroy unpacked it. Then young Will and Parish handled the darts, and then Legge tried them out. Next thing — one of ’em sticks into deceased’s finger and in five minutes he’s a corpse.”

“The inference being…?”

“God knows! They found cyanide on the dart, but how the hell it got there’s a masterpiece. I suppose old Pomeroy’s talked Legge to you.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Well, Legge had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. Cubitt and young Pomeroy swear he took the darts with his left hand and held them point outward in a bunch while he tried them. They say he didn’t wait any time at all. Just threw them into the board, said they were all right and then waded in with his trick. You see, they were all watching Legge.”

“Yes.”

“What about the other five, Super?” asked Fox. “He used six for the trick, didn’t he?”

“Meaning one of them might have contrived to smear cyanide on one dart, while they looked at the lot?”

“It doesn’t make any sort of sense,” said Alleyn. “How was Cubitt or young Pomeroy to know Legge was going to pink Watchman?”

“That’s right,” agreed Harper, relapsing. “So it must be Legge but it couldn’t be Legge; so it must be accident but it couldn’t be accident. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Screamingly.”

“The iodine bottle’s all right and so’s the brandy bottle.”

“The brandy glass was broken?”

“Smashed to powder, except the bottom, and that was in about thirty pieces. They couldn’t find any cyanide.”

“Whereabouts on the dart was the trace of cyanide?”

“On the tip and halfway up the steel point. We’ve printed the dart, of course. It’s got Legge’s prints all over it. They’ve covered Abel’s or anybody else’s who touched it, except Oates, and he kept his head and only handled it by the flight. The analyst’s report is here. And all the exhibits.”

“Yes. Have you fished up a motive?”

“The money goes to Parish and Cubitt. Two thirds to Parish and one third to Cubitt. That’s excepting one or two small legacies. Parish is the next-of-kin. It’s a big estate. The lawyer was so close as an oyster, but I’ve found out it ought to wash up at something like fifty thousand. We don’t know much beyond what everybody knows. Reckon most folks have seen Sebastian Parish on the screen, and Mr. Cubitt seems to be a well-known artist. The C.C. expects the Yard to tackle that end of the stick.”

“Thoughtful of him! Anyone else?”

“They’ve found a bit already. They’ve found Parish’s affairs are in a muddle and he’s been to the Jews. Cubitt had money in that Chain Stores Unlimited thing, that bust the other day. There’s motive there, all right.”

“Anyone else? Pomeroy’s fancy? The mysterious Legge?”

“Him? Motive? You’ve heard Pomeroy, Mr. Alleyn. Says deceased behaved peculiar to Legge. Chaffed him, like. Well, what is there in that? It seems there was a bit of a collision between them, the day Mr. Watchman drove into the Coombe. Day before the fatality that was. Legge’s a bad driver, anyway. Likely enough, Mr. Watchman felt kind of irritated, and let Legge know all about it when they met again. Likely, Legge’s views irritated Mr. Watchman.”

“His views?”

“He’s an out-and-out communist is Legge. Secretary and Treasurer of the Coombe Left Movement and in with young Will and Miss Moore. Mr. Watchman seems to have made a bit of a laughing-stock of the man, but you don’t do murder because you’ve been made to look silly.”

“Not very often, I should think. Do you know anything about Legge? He’s a newcomer, isn’t he?”

Harper unhooked his spectacles and laid them on his desk.

“Yes,” he said, “he’s foreign to these parts. We’ve followed up the usual routine, Mr. Alleyn, but we haven’t found much. He says he came here for his health. He’s opened a small banking account at Illington, three hundred and fifty pounds. He came to the Feathers ten months ago. He gets a big lot of letters, and writes a lot to all parts of the West Country, and sends away a number of small packages. Seems he’s agent for some stamp collecting affair. I got the name, ‘Phillips Philatelic Society,’ and got one of our chaps to look up the headquarters in London. Sure enough, this chap Legge’s the forwarding agent for the west of England. Well, he chummed up with young Will, and about three months ago they gave him this job with the Coombe Left business. I don’t mind saying I don’t like the looks of the man. He’s a funny chap. Unhealthy, I’d say. Something the matter with his ears. We’ve searched all their rooms and I found a chemist’s bottle and a bit of a squirt in his. Had it tested, you bet, but it’s only some muck he squirts into his beastly lug. So I returned it. Cubitt’s room was full of painting gear. We found oil, and turpentine and varnish. Went through the lot. Of course we didn’t expect to find anything. Parish,” said Harper in disgust, “uses scent. Well, not to say scent, but some sort of toilet water. No, I don’t mind saying I don’t like the looks of Legge, but there again, Miss Moore says Mr. Watchman told her he’d never set eyes on the man before.”